Chronicling the development of my Cambrian and Narrow Gauge 4mm scale model railway

Medicine man

One of the things about being a railway (and plane) modeller is that there are plenty of ways to injure ourselves. Fortunately we normally stock things to heal ourselves too.

In this case I’d just put a new scalpel in my knife when I then pared some plastic off a part and like some total newbie did it towards me. This resulted in the scalpel going through the plastic like butter and into the end of my thumb like flora.

Given the usual trick of daubing with Vaseline to form a congealant didn’t work I resorted to the trick used most of the time in A&E these days – super glue. A modeller always has some of it lying around and when it sets it forms a case over the wound allowing the blood to congeal and the wound to heal. What I’d never had before was a flow so rapid that the superglue didn’t set fast enough and as it did, the blood blew it up like a balloon on the end of my thumb.

All very interesting but not something I could share with t’missus as she’d faint. Or tell mother as ditto. So there you are I’m telling you dear listeners. Here we are 24 hours later and after 3 rounds of super glue the would is healing like a good ‘un. As someone with a permanent syndrome (Tyoe 1 diabetes) I avoid the doctor’s like the plague as I go there often enough as it is. Thank goodness for superglue I say.

As an aside, I discovered last night that as a right handed man, I’ve spent 39 years brushing my teeth with my left hand and never noticed until I had to use my right hand and made a right hash of it. Another of my left handed tendencies (it runs in the family) to add to the list.

And in case you’d missed it before – super glue does not work in shear hence why you can peel it off your fingers afterwards. It also means you can “peel” your fingers apart it you stick them together rather than trying to pull them apart (tension) which only strengthens the bonds, or go to the doctor which, unless you’ve done something particularly “clever” is a complete waste of time – it was a man from Loctite who first demonstrated that to me and I normally accidentally test it on myself about once every six months!

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Now rapidly approaching my fifth decade, I am a rolling stock engineer and have worked in many different locations including a 7 year spell in Sydney, Australia, where I arrived with a suitcase and left with a wife and a son.
I am now based back in my home county of Yorkshire where I juggle full time work, being a Dad to two rascally mini-mes, and trying to fit in railway modelling and visits to the top left hand corner of Wales.
In addition to my heavily railway themed life, I am interested in rugby, cricket, reading crime novels, falconry, and medieval re-enactments.